Milliken & Company is an American industrial manufacturer that has been in business since 1865. With corporate headquarters located in Spartanburg, South Carolina, the company is active across a breadth of disciplines including specialty chemical, floor covering, performance and protective textile materials, and healthcare. Milliken employs many scientists, including a large number with masters and doctoral degrees. Milliken has been granted more than 2,500 U.S. patents and more than 5,500 patents worldwide. History In 1865, Seth M. Milliken and William Deering founded Deering Milliken Company, a small woolen fabrics distributor in Portland, Maine. In 1868, Milliken moved the company headquarters to New York City, at that time the heart of the American textile industry. In 1884, the company invested in a new facility in Pacolet, South Carolina, and from that investment the manufacturing operations grew. Milliken & Company headquarters moved to Spartanburg, South Carolina in 1958 and included a dedicated research center on campus. Today, the company operates in a number of diverse disciplines, including specialty chemicals, performance and protective textiles, floor coverings, specialty fabrics, healthcare, and business consulting services. In 2018, Sage Automotive Interiors was carved out of Milliken & Company and became a separate entity. From 1956 until 1980 Milliken & Company (then operating as Deering Milliken) was involved in one of the ugliest and most drawn-out affairs in the history of labor relations. In 1956 company president Roger Milliken closed the Darlington SC mill in response to the workers voting to bring in the Textile Workers Union of America to represent them after Milliken had imposed several changes to working conditions that were unfavorable to the workers. The case was argued all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. In 1980 Milliken & Company paid $5 million to the former workers to settle the matter. Company leadership Roger Milliken became president of the company on the death of his father in 1947 and served in that capacity until 1983, when he became chairman and chief executive officer of Milliken & Company, naming Dr. Thomas J. Malone as president and chief operating officer. In 2002, Malone retired, and Dr. Ashley Allen was named president and COO, becoming CEO in 2006 as Milliken stepped aside from daily management. In 2008, Allen retired and was succeeded by Dr. Joe Salley. In October 2016, J. Harold Chandler, who has served on Milliken's board for over a decade, was appointed as chairman,